


A change of plans

by Imkerin



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Ficlet, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:58:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3858115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imkerin/pseuds/Imkerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miro lets his mind go blank. His nerves prickle with the press of the bridge, a shudder up his spine and into the back of his skull, and he reaches out -- but the person who takes his neural hand isn't Klasnic, which means that something has gone drastically wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A change of plans

Miro manages to work it out, later, picking through censored equipment and construction reports and asking unusually pointed questions of people who look at him with the sort of hero-worship that always makes him feel nervous down to his bones, and it turns out that the whole thing was, actually, a complete accident, a freak chance, a stroke of miraculous, clumsy, impossible luck. One twisted wire, one bad solder, and a small earthquake to shake things up. That's all.

 

He's sitting in the test cockpit with Ivan Klasnic, with whom he has always on paper been an excellent match. Circumstances have, in the past, always prevented them from getting to this stage before: there'd been a shortage of jaegers at first, and then suddenly Miro had been all but shoved into Ballack's _Adler_ ; not too long afterward Klasnic had ended up in _Vatreni_ with Srna. But war's war, and the _Adler_ had gone down off the coast of Brazil and taken Micha with her. He's not sure what Klasnic's story is -- _Vatreni_ is still fighting, as far as he knows -- but here they are at last, next to each other, suited up and hooked in, nothing between them but ghosts; _Bremen_ 's out there waiting for them, if they can hold this together, and so are the kaiju. 

Klasnic glances over with a faint here-goes smile, and Miro lets his mind go blank. His nerves prickle with the press of the bridge, a shudder up his spine and into the back of his skull, and he reaches out -- but the person who takes his neural hand isn't Klasnic, which means that something has gone drastically wrong. That much is instantly, immediately clear, and Miro has opened his mouth to say something -- he's not sure what -- something to alert the technicians, who haven't seemed to notice a thing, maybe -- but just then something clicks together in his mind, a sharp crunching _snap_ like a dislocated shoulder jarred back into place, and he says nothing at all, even his throat-clearing stammer silenced with the shocking force of it.

Whoever-it-is on the other end (Thomas, he thinks, and suddenly he/they are remembering the pilot's qualification written exam, filled out completely brilliantly and nearly illegibly in blue pen, _Thomas Müller_ scrawled across the top: the flutter of the paper as it drops to Marshal Lahm's desk, utter confidence that he will make it through // neat handwriting in black ink, a careful signature: _Miroslav Klose_ , Micha's piercing blue eyes, a future full of _what-if_ // the seawater crushing down on him, red-black-gold and iridescent blue in the water, and it's over but Micha's gone, he's alone in his own mind // Lisa smiling at him, pressing an apple into his hand for luck) -- _Thomas_ isn't next to him, but Miro can feel where he is: just on the other side of the far wall, being fitted for his first drivesuit. That's all right. That's not too far. If something happens, he can get there in time; it won't happen again. He won't lose anyone else.

 _Klose?_ Thomas thinks, a hint of gawky surprise winding its way through the color of the thought, the sort of thing that could make a jaeger trip itself up and fall flat on its face, but somehow Miro isn't worried. Not about that. There are things he is worried about: what is he going to do about this? (no idea) and how young is Thomas, anyway (20) and will they give _Bremen_ to Klasnic and someone else, anyone else but him, and leave Miro-and-Thomas grounded?

 _Yes,_ Miro answers.

 _Oh,_ Thomas thinks, and _Hey, wow, this is awkward, I'm not supposed to be here,_ to himself, although there _is_ no himself in the drift, which he realizes openly a second later and laughs about, the sound filling Miro's mind, dragging a tiny smile from him. _They should, though. Give it to him, I mean._

There's no shred of reluctance in him, though, not a hint of surrender: he's as eager to get into the fight as Miro is to get back to it, and there's not a single ounce of discretion or experience holding him back. _Why?_

_Bayern's almost done! Look at this--_

A sudden swirling haze of red and blue and white sweeps over them, tickling at the inside of Miro's nose like a stuck sneeze, and he snaps _Thomas_ sternly just before it gets to be too much, and it fades, but only a little, and resolves itself into something that resembles a jaeger... mostly. There's a wave of mixed apology-pride-incredulity that Miro doesn't care if he gets stuck in the (obviously inferior) _Bremen_ // not if it gets them out there sooner // it's the principle of the thing // really, Thomas? // naturally.

"Miro?" someone says, outside. "Miro? _Mirek._ Hey!"

It takes Miro a second longer to remember how to speak aloud -- he'd never been this close, this deep so quickly with Micha, not even after years of flying with him ( _really, Miro?_ // _not now, Thomas_ ) -- but he manages it, licking dry lips and turning his head ( _Oh,_ Thomas says, looking Klasnic over through Miro's eyes, _So that's what_ \-- // _not **now**_ ) to see Klasnic staring at him in confusion and concern.

"Sorry, Ivan," he says, as the technicians finally notice that Miro is in fact fully, impossibly connected to the drive, fully linked to someone else, while Klasnic is impossibly _not,_ and start loud and frantic investigations. He is and isn't sorry at the same time (and Thomas isn't at all, and isn't quiet about that, either) because it's possible, it's _probable,_ that Klose-and-Klasnic would have made an excellent team, in some other time, in some other place. But he isn't going to lose Thomas (cheerful, youthfully-immortal agreement), so -- it's only one more line on the long list of things Miro will never know.


End file.
